Dan Uggla surprised Florida Marlins traded him but happy to be in Atlanta

Dan Uggla just spoke to Marlins beat writers about being traded to the Braves.

“I was very surprised because I was still thinking in a weird way that we were going to be able to get something done where I could’ve stayed in Florida. Turns out that wasn’t the case,” he said.
“Lot of different emotions. Very excited to be a Brave. Very sad that I’m not a Marlin anymore.
Very excited to be able to play with guys like Brian McCann and Chipper Jones and the rest of the Braves.

“But at the same time very sad that I wont be playing with all my buddies back in Florida, with JJ, Ricky and all of the guys I’ve come up with and all of our new guys. Logan Morrison, Mike Stanton, Bryan Petersen, Gaby Sanchez. It’s very tough. I grew very close to Clay Hensley this year. It’s gonna be weird not being able to hang out with him every day.”

He said he understood there was a good chance he’d get traded after rejecting the team’s four-year, $48 million offer.

“At the same time, the trade hadn’t happened yet,” he siad. “I was still thinking we could get something done, even though in the back of my mind I knew that this was a possibility or probably going to happen. I was thinking I was going to be a Marlin.”

He was still flattered by the Marlins’ offer. But he said he feels like he was worth the deal he wanted — a five-year contract worth a reported $71 million — regardless of the fact that he will turn 31 in March.

“If they’d offered that to me last year or the year before, it would be a very fair deal,” Uggla said of the $48 million offer.

“They were trying to say I’m not going to get a five-year deal and nobody in my age gets a five-year deal. Ryan Howard just got a five-year deal, Carl Crawford is gonna get a five or six-year deal minimum, Jayson Werth, Matt Holliday signed a seven-year deal last year…

“Don’t get me wrong — $48 million is life-changing, life-changing for anybody. I totally respect that that’s a lot of money, but where I’ve come in my career that just wasn’t the deal that I was looking for.”

Earlier this afternoon, Uggla spoke to XM radio about the Marlins trading him to Atlanta.

“It was a great move for them, I guess, and an awesome move for me,” he said.

“I was happy and comfrtable in Florida. I was open to (continue) negotiating. They chose to make a final offer. I wasn’t ready to stop talking. It was not me who stopped the negotiations.”